The Long-Expected Messiah

The Long-Expected Messiah

Matthew 1:1-17

Main Idea:

The story of Advent begins with a genealogy to show that this is good news and not good advice.

  1. Understanding the Setting

  2. Understanding the Characters

  3. The Continuing Story

I. Understanding the Setting

Meta-Narrative of Scripture:

God the Father is redeeming a people through God the Son, uniting them together by God the Holy Spirit, for His glory and our good.

II. Understanding the Characters

As Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience, he uses two characters from Israel’s history that are well known: Abraham and David

Matthew 1:1

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

Three groups of people:

  1. The Known

  2. The Familiar

  3. The Obscure

The Known (vv. 2-6a): 

The Obscure (vv. 12-16)

2 Chronicles 36:22-23

22 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:

23 "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, 'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up.'"

“So the return from exile under the leadership of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah didn’t solve the people’s problems. The decree from Cyrus is incomplete because the authors of the [Old Testament] were still waiting for a real return from exile and the coming of the Messianic kingdom of God. God’s people need a deliverer from a deeper kind of exile than simply being ruled by Babylon. In Chronicles, the literal exile has become an image of Israel’s ongoing “spiritual” exile, their slavery to evil and sin and their inability to obey the [Law]. This is all representative of the human condition: home and yet not home until the kingdom of God comes. The Chronicler, and the people, are anxiously awaiting this day.” -The Bible Project

III. The Continuing Story

If there’s room for people like this in Jesus’ family, there’s room for you and me.



()